Sterilization and Disposal of Agricultural Quarantine Waste

In this study we assess the efficacy of a relatively new decontamination technology, alkaline digestion, to mitigate infectious agents. Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs), a member of the protein misfolding diseases (ex: Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases), were chosen as the infectious agent for this study because they rank as the hardest to kill microbe/pathogen, affect both human and animal species worldwide and are shed by infected hosts into the environment establishing highly infectious biota. Chronic wasting disease (CWD), an emerging TSE of cervid species (deer, elk, moose) in North America, has recently been spotlighted as a potential concern for European countries, and recapitulates human and animal TSE pathogenesis and shedding. For these reasons CWD is ideal for mitigation studies. We processed CWD positive and negative materials by alkaline digestion under standard temperature and pressure at time intervals of 2, 4, and 6h. Samples were retrieved after digestion, were neutralized and inoculated intracerebrally into transgenic mice expressing the cervid protein to determine remaining prion infectivity. In addition, the samples (pre and post alkaline digestion) were tested for amplification competent prions by Protein Misfolding Cyclic Amplification (PMCA). Preliminary results suggest a lack of amplification competent prions in samples processed by alkaline digestion at 2, 4, and 6h cycles as compared to nondigested samples. This work will provi...
Source: New Horizons in Translational Medicine - Category: Research Source Type: research